An increasing number of web-services leverage location data describing the current or past location of a user to provide an enhanced or improved user experience. As an example, certain social media platforms can allow users to check-in to a particular location to inform their contacts of their current location. As another example, certain social media platforms can allow users to tag their postings or updates with their current location so as to share a more robust depiction of their current activities. As yet another example, certain web-services can permit users to provide a review, rating, or other feedback concerning a particular point of interest such as, for example, a restaurant, music venue, or other point of interest that the user has recently visited.
Furthermore, users can visit certain web-services to view the location-associated data available from their friends or contacts with the goal of making more informed decisions or staying up to date on social activities. For example, a user might visit a web-service with the goal of selecting among several restaurants based on which of such restaurants has been visited more times by their friends or contacts. Thus, the collection and presentation of location-associated data is a growing component of various web-services providing different functionality and user experiences.
However, one problem associated with the increasing number of web-services leveraging location data is that such location data remains segmented among the web-services. For example, the user hoping to select a restaurant based on number of past visits by friends or contacts may not be able to obtain a complete visitor history of each restaurant unless the user visits several web-services or social media platforms. In particular, the user may have to visit a first web-service to identify which of her friends have uploaded a post from a given restaurant. The user may then have to visit a second web-service to determine the number of friends that have checked-in to the given restaurant and then visit yet a third web-service to read reviews of the restaurant provided by her friends.
The challenge presented by segmentation of location-associated data across multiple web-services is compounded by the fact that each location signal from each web-service is frequently subject to specific visibility settings and expectations, respect for which is an essential component of a positive user experience.
In particular, certain web-services can provide each user with an opportunity to control which other users or persons can view or otherwise interact with their particular postings or activities. For example, a user that interacts with a web-service to check-in to a restaurant may indicate that only a certain set of other users of such web-service can be informed of such check-in. Therefore, aggregation and presentation of location signals across various web-services having varying levels of visibility information is particularly challenging.